CHART: Mitt Romney's Great Big Jobs Creation Lie

On the campaign trail, Mitt
Romney likes to
say some variation of the claim that as governor he created
more jobs in Massachusetts than President Obama has created in
the entire country.

To make that claim stack up, Romney cites net national job
creation since Obama's inauguration. Given that the economy shed
over 800,000 jobs in one month at the height of the recession,
that tends to skew things.

In touting his own jobs record, however, Romney
likes to cite the gross jobs created, rather than the net
jobs change. For instance, Romney credits himself with creating
over 100,000 jobs while at Bain
Capital thanks to job growth in a few companies managed by
Bain, though some of Bain's other groups bled jobs at the same
time.

So let's level the playing field.

Comparing only the total jobs created in Massachusetts from the
lowest point of Romney's tenure to the total jobs created since
the lowest point of Obama's tenure gives a much different picture
than the one above. Specifically, it gives you this:

Yes, it's a ludicrous comparison. But if that's the metric Romney
wants to use for his own record, applying that same metric to
President Obama's record is only fair.